The B.C. film and television industry was home to a total of 260 productions in 2008, pumping more than $1.2 billion into the local economy - up 30 per cent over 2007, despite the tightening global economy. The bulk of the productions are based in Greater Vancouver, the heart of "Hollywood North." B.C. is the third largest centre for film and television production in North America behind Los Angeles and New York, markets which both saw drops in overall shooting days in 2008. The sector also supported 30,000 B.C. jobs with more than 90 per cent of the production crews used being British Columbian.

B.C.'s success accounts for about half of all film and TV activity in Canada, with Ontario attracting a similar proportion. The Canadian dollar exchange rate and tax breaks given to production companies are largely responsible for this activity, and these two factors have encouraged a great deal of B.C.-based film and TV production from the USA.

Recognising its growing importance, provincial and municipal governments started to make Vancouver an attractive production proposition in the 1970s. The province established the B.C. Film Commission (www.bcfilmcommission.com) in 1978 to clear a path between Hollywood and Vancouver, establishing an office in the world centre of movie-making and creating a package of services to assist U.S. studios. These included expedited permitting, equipment availability audits, location and studio co-ordination and post-production services. For its part, the City of Vancouver established a film services department to assist urban location shoots with traffic control, parking permits and preferred site access.

Over the past three decades, the region has built a strong and stable film and TV production-support industry, combining multi-level government assistance with a critical mass of skilled and experienced industry workers and sophisticated facilities. Many of Hollywood's leading players have based productions here in recent years, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Disney, Polygram, Trimark, Showtime, Viacom, Universal, Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox. While the locally-shot X-Files TV series was notorious for retaining Vancouver visuals in its supposedly US locations, recent shows such as Smallville, Stargate SG-1 and Hero have made more of an effort to disguise their Vancouver sets. Canadian shows like Da Vinci's Inquest and Supernatural also called the city their production home, and there have been numerous animation projects here - Vancouver is home to Mainframe Productions, one of North America's largest fully-computerised animation studios.

Story Idea Consider a story on Vancouver film locations for visiting TV and movie fans. Contact the B.C. Film Commission for assistance, and then cover the most interesting sites for your readers. Interview a couple of local actors or extras who have appeared in blockbuster Hollywood North movies and coordinate your visit to catch a film shoot on one of the city's streets. Trivia Spooky TV shows Millennium, The Dead Zone, Poltergeist: The Legacy and even The New Adams Family have all filmed in Vancouver.